Worker- and Community-Led Strategies for a Fairer Economy

Amanda Fins  00:06

Hi everyone. My name is Amanda Fins, or as my colleagues know me, Finny, I am a Senior Research Associate at the Economic Opportunities Program here at the Aspen Institute, and it’s my pleasure to welcome you all to our conversation today. This conversation is part of our Job Quality in Practice series where we examine ideas, policies and practices that can help improve jobs and workplaces and address the job quality crisis in the US. Before we start, we’re going to do a really quick review of our technology. All attendees are muted. We encourage questions. Please use the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen to submit an upvote other few other folks questions. We want to hear your ideas, so please share your perspective, ideas and examples, resources, experiences, anything related to today’s conversation in the chat. We also encourage you to post about this conversation on social media. Our hashtag today is #talkgoodjobs. If you have any technical issues, definitely let us know. Please message us in the chat, or you can also email us at [email protected], as usual, this event is being recorded, and we will be sharing this recording via email, and it will also be posted on our website. If you’d like. Closed captions are available for the conversation. Just click the CC button at the bottom of your screen to activate them.

Amanda Fins  01:32

And thank you all for joining us today. I think this is going to be a really important and compelling conversation, and this series is called fFxing Work in the South, and we’re bringing together members of the Aspen Institute’s Job Quality fellowship program from across the US South practitioners who are on the front lines of expanding access to good jobs in their communities. And while these Fellows span a variety of sectors, including economic and workforce development, employee ownership, worker organizing, advocacy and many, many more things, they share our common value, and that’s that working people deserve to thrive and prosper in our economy and get a fair share of the fruits of their labor. And through this series, the Fellows are going to be exploring the barriers to good jobs in the south, examining promising strategies emerging in the field and challenging the conventional wisdom about what economic policies and business models it takes to build an economy that works for everyone. Today’s conversation is going to focus specifically on job quality strategies that are led by workers and the communities that they’re based in. How worker and community led strategies are created and implemented, not just with them in mind, but as a central part of the design and implementation. And also the tangible progress that we can see when workers and communities lead the way as the experts of their own experience. It happens often that strategies are designed without meaningful decision making power in the hands of the people most affected by those strategies. Workers and communities may be consulted, but are not often recognized as the architects of the solutions themselves. And so with today’s conversation, we hope to answer what changes when workers and communities are the leaders in shaping economic policy and when their lived experiences are treated as the expertise that it actually is. For a long time, the dominant approach to economic development in the South has prioritized business attraction, deregulation and cost competitiveness, and unfortunately, we can see that the outcomes of that approach have not consistently delivered job quality or economic security, and that many working families are still navigating low wages, limited benefits and are struggling to get by. But worker and community led strategies offer a different path, and they start from the premise that the people closest to the challenges are also closest to the solutions, and they recognize that lasting change requires a different dynamic than we’re used to seeing: more power for working people and communities and more accountability to the new structures that they’re building, and when worker and community help design and implement strategies, we often see stronger buy in more responsive policy and solutions that are better aligned to the real world conditions, and we also see models that are rooted in dignity and long term sustainability.

Amanda Fins  04:21

So while today’s focus is on the south, the implications extend beyond this region and across the country. We know that there’s growing recognition that top down economic strategies alone are not going to meet the scale of today’s job quality crisis. So after today’s conversation, I hope we can all come away with a new sense that the South can be the proving ground for how to build a fair economy. Our Fellows are going to share what worker and community led strategies and leadership look like in practice, where it’s going well and what barriers are still in place, as well as what becomes possible when the power shifts closer to the people who are most affected.

Amanda Fins  04:59

So with that we’re going to get into it. I’m eager to have you hear from our Fellows, and excited to share all of this with you about what it takes to build a fair economy and having workers at the helm. So to introduce our panel, we have Ben Wilkins, who is the Director of Union of Southern Service Workers. Kelly Brooks is the Organizational Development Manager at Civic Works. Maya Ragdale, the Co- Executive EDrector of Beyond the Bars and Cecilia Begum, Research Director at Texas Climate Jobs Project. Thank you for joining us, and I would like for us to get started by having you introduce yourselves and your organization. And as you introduce yourselves, if you could tell us a little bit about the populations and the communities that you’re working with to lead the way towards better working conditions. What are you hearing from them, and what are you hearing that they need right now? And I think we’ll start with Ben..

Ben Wilkins  05:59

Cool, thanks Finny. Well, hi everybody. My name is Ben Wilkins. I’m the Director of uthe Union of Southern Service Workers, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union. We are a union that is very young. We were formed a couple years ago and represent workers in the service and care sector in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. And you know, the populations that we’re organizing are really in some of the lowest wage but highest, the largest occupations and the fastest growing jobs in the South. And really what we’re hearing right now is a huge amount of concern about affordability and cost of living, which for workers, means wages, and the need for really dramatically higher wages. And then I think secondarily is really a deep need for pathways to more opportunity, for more education, for more job training, to be able to enter into, you know, more high quality jobs.

Amanda Fins  07:04

Thank you. We’re really glad that you’re here, and thank you for sharing that. I think we will go to Kelly next.

Kelly Brooks  07:11

Thank you again. Kelly Brooks, with Civic Works, we’re located here in Baltimore, Maryland, and we’re a workforce development organization, right located in the heart of Baltimore City. The organization does a lot, but I will say, the department that I work in the Center for Sustainable Careers, we offer job training in areas of solar, green energy, climate resiliency and utility infrastructure and also roofing and so the populations that we primarily work with are folks that are coming from the city who may have disadvantaged backgrounds, may have been formerly incarcerated, may have very little job experience, and we’re working with those populations to help serve so that folks can get sustainable jobs and maintain their families and the things that they in their life. And I would say probably the biggest need in that is really focusing on what the trainees who come through our program need there they, I would say, come from high need backgrounds. I’ll just put it like that, and so being able to connect them with employers who have an understanding of that population and but also are willing to give folks a chance. They we come with very high skilled folks who are very eager and wanting to work and are very good once they get on the job. So that’s that’s our, that’s our, our work at Civic Works.

Amanda Fins  09:04

Awesome, thank you, Kelly. We will go to Maya next.

Maya Ragsdale  09:09

Hey everyone. I’m Maya Ragsdale, and I’m the Co-Executive Director of Beyond the Bars. We are a worker center that’s based in Florida with a really sort of heavy focus in South Florida, Miami, Dade, Broward, Monroe counties. We organize workers who have criminal records. And many of our many of our members are finding work through temp agencies, working at warehouses, construction sites, manufacturing facilities like light industrial facilities. And our members are really people who have been locked out of stable, stable employment. And we, I think, at Beyond the Bars, we think of re entry, of sort of reintegration as a serious labor market issue. What we see is that people come home wanting to work, ready to work, but the jobs that are available to people are are low wage, they’re unstable. There are so many different sorts of, you know, issues with probation, parole, community control, the variety of different forms of supervision that people are under. And so our work is really focused on, how do we actually fix work itself? How do we improve the quality of work versus, you know, kind of creating a pipeline into the existing bad jobs that people are typically able to get when they’re coming home. And I think that in terms of what our members and what we hear from workers every day, it’s really similar, similar to what Ben said, the cost of living is really, I mean, for all of us, right? I think we all feel it. We all feel it in our in our in our paychecks. The cost of housing is really high, the cost of groceries, all of those things. And if you don’t have the money to pay for them, if you don’t have jobs with the wages to actually support your support, those costs of living that you really in at the end of the day have very little control over people are just in a really, really hard place. And so what we hear from our members is that people want stable jobs, people want predictable schedules. People want to feel respect on the job. They want dignified work. And people want to, people want to, you know, rebuild after after incarceration.

Amanda Fins  11:23

Yeah, thanks for naming some of those things, Maya. I think that’s going to be a theme across the board that we’re going to hear here, and I will go to Cecilia.

Cecilia Behgam  11:37

Hi everyone. I’m Cecilia Behgam I’m the Research Director at Texas Climate Jobs Project. I’m based in Dallas, Texas, and Texas Climate Jobs Project works across the state. And you know, we work with a diverse coalition of labor unions, environmental groups, community organizations, and our mission is to advance a pro worker pro climate agenda here in our state, and what that means for us is, you know, as the clean energy industry grows and as there’s more and more jobs that are, you know, addressing the climate crisis, that we really ensure that these are good jobs, they’re safe jobs, their family supporting jobs that can really reverse income inequality in our state and hopefully across the country, you know, the folks that we work with, it’s, it’s a really, it’s really diverse. You know, we also do research to understand working conditions for non union workers in the clean energy industry. And you know this, this varies from rural workers to urban workers to workers that are traveling across the state and the country for solar construction, you know, manufacturing workers as well. So you know, we’re hearing from a lot of different folks, but I’ll just also echo what’s already been shared is we’re hearing a lot of concern about cost of living. And just to add, you know, our perspective on it, you know, we hear from energy workers that, you know they they have this tough job. They’re working in an extreme heat. You know, there’s a lot of volatility on the job, particularly in construction, where, you know, you work on a solar construction project, you get it laid off, right? And then you have to find the next thing. But while you’re doing all this work, it’s hard to afford your electricity bill. So yeah, I’m excited to just share more and talk with this awesome group of folks about all the work and the strategies that we’re moving to address these challenges.

Amanda Fins  13:36

Thanks. Yeah, thank you for joining us. We’re really excited to have you here. So from here, I would like to dive in a little bit to talking about the challenges of doing this work, both current and historical. So then I want to come back to you to kick us off here. You know, the last couple of years in the current movement have created an urgent need for workers to continue organizing in order to respond to these conditions, but we know that a lot of what we’re seeing now is not necessarily new, and that the history of worker organizing in the south is very long. So I’d love if you could tell us a little bit about the history of organizing in the south, the challenges and sort of where you’re seeing that history come into play today.

Ben Wilkins  14:21

Yeah, definitely. Well, I think everybody’s well aware that, you know, union membership is a lot lower in the South than it is in the rest of the country. You know, it’s about half the national average. And in states like North Carolina, where I’m at, it’s even lower. And oftentimes, people, I think, tend to assume that that has something to do with the culture of the South, or, you know, the more negative attitudes that Southern workers might have towards unions. But really, you know, my experience has been that that’s not the case at all. And I think really what it has everything to do with are the historic challenges that face workers. And really those challenges have been twofold. One is just the political hostility, the hostility towards unions from from the power structure that is really rooted in the history of the South and the origins of the South as a slave economy, which really developed along very different lines than the rest of the country. And then second, you know, has been really the inability of unions to really make the right kind of interventions in the south and to make a long term commitment. So there’s been a lot of really incredible attempts to organize and some really, really important successes, and some really incredible fights between that workers led to improve their lives. But you know, particularly in the post World War II period, you know, unions have really struggled to make long term commitments, I think, have really failed, honestly, to appreciate the importance of connecting the fight against racism with the fight for quality jobs in the south. And that kind of legacy is something that we’re still up against and really trying to, I think, just do better as a labor movement, and to right some of those mistakes and and I think really focusing on the issues that are core to millions and millions of working people in the South, and not being afraid to, you know, confront the history of racism and the way that it relates to to labor in the South.

Amanda Fins  16:50

Yeah, thank you for taking us through some of that history and where it’s playing out today. It’s important to sort of get a sense of where we’ve been, you know, to sort of know where we’re going. So to pivot a little bit, Maya, coming back to you Beyond the Bars, has done really incredible work with workers with a record and especially in the temp worker space. And I can imagine that you know, you’ve mentioned already, the many barriers to workers organizing and working generally in this community, both in the sense that, you know, there’s so many barriers in the labor market, and just with how the temp industry works. Can you speak to that and how that sort of looks in Florida?

Maya Ragsdale  17:34

Yeah, definitely. So I think, just to frame it really quickly, there’s about 114 million people in this country who have a criminal record, 114 million people who’ve been arrested, which is about a third of the population. When you think about the South half of people in Louisiana have a, can have a have a criminal record. Half of people in Georgia have a criminal record. Nearly 40% of people in Florida have a criminal record. And so the number of people that these that sort of like incarceration, the carceral state effect, is absolutely massive. In terms of what we often see happening when somebody actually goes through the system. Increasingly, people are coming home on some form of supervision, whether that’s probation, parole, community control, there’s they go by many, many different names, but I think the key thing that is common across them is that they typically mandate employment, while at the same time making it very, very difficult to maintain quality work. And that is in the form of curfews that project prevent people from taking overtime shifts when they need it, which could then result in a loss of a job or loss of seniority, or these sorts of things. Mandatory drug tests that often occur during work hours, probation check ins that occur during work hours, drug tests, mandatory drug treatment classes that occur during work hours. So there’s all these sorts of requirements that courts impose on people when they’re coming home that actually make it very, very, very difficult for people to actually have a job. And what we see is that, you know, there’s a few different industries that people are really funneled into.

Maya Ragsdale  19:19

One of them that is the one that we focus on, as you said, Finny, is the temp industry. The temp industry is really broad, right? It spans every single sector, every industry in the economy. But what we where we focus is the blue collar temp industry, where there really aren’t background checks, and people are being put into, like I said earlier, construction, manufacturing, warehousing, for the most part. And what we see there is that essentially, the way it works is that you have a temp agency that people go to you, typically three, four o’clock in the morning, put their name in the hat to get selected for a job that day, and then sent out to that job site. They’re typically absolutely like the minimal to nobody. Background checks, and so people are kind of able to get the same jobs that they, you know, get jobs that they would have been denied for had they, had they applied directly to the warehouse, for example, but the wages are typically about half of what you get paid if you’ve gotten the job directly. And there’s a lot of confusion that is very intentional around who you go to if you’re having wage issues, if you’re having conditions or safety issues. So for example, if somebody gets injured on the job, do you go to your temp agency to try to get to try to get workers comp, or do you go to the employer or the warehouse, you know, where that injury actually happened? And there’s a lot of obfuscation there about, you know, who is the, who is the right person to go to, because both sides are trying to keep their their insurance rates low, and so, I think, sort of this emergence of these labor party intermediaries, it’s actually really interesting, because it’s really coincided with the rise of mass incarceration, really, in the 60s, 70s, 80s. And, you know, it’s actually become sort of a key part of of of the labor market today. And so I think that, you know, that’s kind of the way that that we think about it, and it really creates these situations where people are are in, you know, positions that are sort of permanently unstable. We see people who have been we have some of our members who have been temp workers for eight, 910, years, and have never been directly hired so constantly doing temp work on a day to day, sort of day to day basis. And then we see, you know, across the labor market, it creates wage suppression. And then there’s also just a lot of fear about actually speaking up about standards and or, like, about conditions on the job, because if you say something, the temp agency could just choose not to reassign you to a new job after your particular placement is over. And so there’s just a lot of things that sort of this, this temp industry temp agencies really do that affect job quality, sort of across the board, and the places in, at least in the blue collar temp industry that we see the most of it’s the same places where we see a heavy concentration of formerly incarcerated workers. So there’s really, sort of, like a very close correlation, I guess you could say, between the way that that industry moves and the and the sort of like, really, like this, this group of this workforce that you know doesn’t really have a lot of other options about where to find work.

Amanda Fins  22:34

Yeah, I appreciate you highlighting that perspective a lot, and I think it really speaks to the hard work it really takes for these numbers to organize while they’re navigating all of these dynamics. So thank you for that, Cecilia, you’ve done a lot of research on the state of clean energy jobs, including a study where you interviewed workers to hear about the issues that come up frequently in the industry. Can you share more about that research and your findings and some of your takeaways coming out of it. Absolutely.

Cecilia Behgam  23:04

Thanks. Vinnie, so in 2024 Texas climate jobs project co authored a report with Cornell University’s climate jobs Institute as well as organized power and numbers about the state of clean energy jobs in Texas. And you know what was unique about the study is that most you know data that we gather about jobs, we’re gathering that information from employers, right? It’s like gathering wage data, benefit information from employers. And this was unique because we interviewed over 1000 non union clean energy workers across the state of Texas. So we drove all around the state, you know, the majority of the folks we talked to were non union solar workers working on, you know, like large, what we would call utility scale solar projects. We also talked to workers building utility scale wind projects, and also workers in clean energy manufacturing. And, you know, I’m a proud Texan, but I will say I think there’s a lot of importance for, you know, what we found, both for the South and the country, because Texas is a leader. And, you know, solar and wind energy production, right? We have we’re producing the most clean energy of any state in the country. So I think there’s a lot to learn. You know, unfortunately, we found very concerning findings. You know, half of the workers we talked to had experienced some form of heat related illness. You know, one in four workers had experienced an injury, and we just saw severe disparities between for wages and benefits, between, you know, workers of color and white workers, between women and non binary workers and men, between. Workers that took our survey in Spanish versus workers that took our survey in English. So we saw these large disparities. And you know, I think our takeaway from that is, you know, we know that a key solution to closing these gaps is a union contract, right? Union labor unions are like incredible partners, both for training and apprenticeship, but also, you know, health and safety on the job site, ensuring equity and wages and benefits for all workers on a site. And like I mentioned earlier, you know, if you’re working in a industry like construction, where you might be going right from one project to another. You know what we were, what we hear a lot from non union solar workers is, you know, they can get laid off with very short notice, right? It’s like you’ve been working on a project for three months. You can get a three day notice of getting laid off right from that project. And then you have to figure out where you’re going to go next, but, and then, you know, your benefits can change as well, but with a union contract, you’re you, you may, you stay within the same benefit structure, right? There’s a shared retirement and health care fund. So as you’re moving from project to project, you’re continuing to contribute to that, that same, that same fund. So those were, you know, I would say, some of our key takeaways, and, you know, we’ve been working just like really diligently to continue to to understand from non union clean energy workers just about how, you know, how things are changing or improving or not as the clean energy industry continues to grow,

Amanda Fins  26:45

yeah, thank you. Those are, those are powerful takeaways, and it’s interesting you highlighting the sort of difference in experience between the union and the non union worker. So I appreciate you sharing that. Going to Kelly as a community based organization that’s positioned to work with both workers and employers. I am interested to hear your perspective on what the greatest challenge of doing this work are right now. What can you say about the needs of workers and employers and the community in Baltimore right now? How do you as an organization sort of find out what exactly those needs are. Thanks.

Kelly Brooks  27:23

Vinnie, so I think the challenge is really to depend on who you ask. So if you were to talk to, you know, the trainees and the folks looking for work, and the workers, you know, it’s definitely finding sustainable jobs, definitely being able to work for employers that are going to provide respectable work, provide the, you know, the working hours that are that folks are looking for, and ultimately, you know, all of the things that folks need to have a sustainable life, good wages and benefits, all of the things that my colleagues here have mentioned, on top of that, the personal challenges that that the populations that we’re dealing with are, are coming from so you know, home issues, you know, dealing with things that that are that you know might be very much out of their control, or just kind of having to go through systemic issues, being able to get to job sites that are pretty far not all of our, you know, employers, and you know, work in the city, I won’t say our employers, but a lot of folks are. A lot of employers are, are not in Baltimore City, right there, in the surrounding counties, where there’s very little transportation. It’s hard to get to so if you’re asked to be on a job site by 456, in the morning, and your mode of transportation is typically public transportation, that makes it very, extremely difficult to obtain that job and then to maintain it. So folks are becoming very limited in their options for employment based on situations that they’re dealing with.

Kelly Brooks  29:08

On the employer side, I would say, challenges on the employer side for us, getting employers to kind of understand what quality job. Providing quality jobs really means their job quality. So no employer is really going to say, Yeah, we offer terrible jobs, right? Like they’re not going to just say, our workplace is terrible. I truly believe that a lot of employers, at least in this area, really are trying to do their best, but at the same time, they have a business to run, and so they’re going to be looking for the the quality employers or employees that they need to hire. So it comes down to, should I work with this workforce organization, you know, this workforce development organization that has all these, you know, trainees that are coming out into the field, looking for job. Jobs, or do I just go on LinkedIn and all these other job sites where folks might have had other, you know, other job experience and things like that. And so we’re kind of having to sort of straddle that line between what an employer wants and needs and what our trainees want to need. You know, I would say we often present the business case for job quality. You know, good jobs. Providing good jobs is good for business. It’s good for your bottom line. So there are a lot of things that an employer is going to experience, things like turnover, retention, burnout, employee engagement, performance, management issues, even just management issues, right training and so having to navigate between providing those things and looking at how that impacts your bottom line in a sense like retention and turnover. Those are, those are kind of those hidden costs. It, on average, it costs 150% of someone’s salary to replace them, if you’re constantly turning over your installers, your frontline workers, or things you know, positions like that, where that process is sort of just built into the system, well, we’re just going to hire more people, right? We let these 10 people go, these other people you know left for whatever reason. We don’t have time to deal with it. We’re just going to go ahead and hire more people. There’s always more people looking for work. So that’s kind of the the narrative that you battle against, where you’re talking with employers about maintaining and trying to create a better workplace, but at the same time talking to them about the hidden costs that impact their bottom line and also for them to just really take time to make these changes. I mean, change management is slow work. It’s very intentional work. It’s not it’s you can go for the quick wins, obviously, but at the same time, to make real, true, impactful change can take a while. You’re changing processes. You’re changing policies, and ultimately, the way people think and behave on the job, even those who have decision making power, who may have been in positions for a long time and just used to getting the work done. Everyone just wants to get it done at the end of the day, right, and at the easiest way possible. And so when we’re talking about something like change management, which takes patience and time and intention and a lot of forethought, it’s hard to kind of navigate that with employers.

Kelly Brooks  33:01

When you’re talking about day to day business, they’re trying to get the regulatory changes. They’re trying to get through folks, you know, whatever they have to do on the job. They’re trying to get through contracts. They’re trying to maintain compliance like they they’ve got a lot of things that, you know, the employers themselves are dealing with. And then we come to them and say, Hey, let’s make sure that you’re providing quality jobs at the same time, and here’s how we try to make it very easy for them by providing consulting and things like that that are either very low cost or free. But again, it takes the time and intentionality and agreement among all of the leaders and decision makers to be able to be part of that, that process of change.

Amanda Fins  33:44

Yeah, thank you for sharing all of that. I think I want to stay on this for a second. You know this change management aspect of the work that you do, we know you’ve had several grants to approach job quality and sustainable careers with employers using what you call a human centered design process. Can you tell us more about that process and what you can share with us about the outcomes that you’ve seen doing one on one engagement with employers? Yeah.

Kelly Brooks  34:12

Thanks. Finny, the human centered design process, that was actually a pretty fun project. We did two aspects of that. We did human centered design and a non human centered design approach. So the human centered design approach very much is employee intensive, where we work, not only with leadership and HR, but we’re working with a dedicated group of employees who are very interested in making changes in the workplace. And so a lot of this looks like the employees taking a lot of responsibility in understanding and learning different processes so they learn things like. How to interview their employees. They learn their colleagues. They learn things like how to create surveys, how to do focus groups, how to sift through data and feedback and find themes coming together frequently, almost at that point we were meeting weekly. A lot of times it was when they were finished their shift, right? So they’re dedicating time after work to do this. And so there are a lot of it’s it’s a very collaborative process that the employees really take a lot of ownership over. But the other side of that is that they learn so much right there, they’re getting a lot of skill they wouldn’t normally have gotten by just by their by their regular job. And so we found that there were employees that realized or discovered, like, through the process, hey, I really love this type of work. Like we had one, one worker who said, I actually want to go into into into od work like, I want to go into change management, like, I don’t want to work for this, for this, you know, this restaurant for the rest of my time. I know I’m young, like, I want to do something different. We had another employee that really stepped up to really take ownership over one of the outcomes. We had a company that realized that their front of house was making a lot more than back of house, right tips, all of that stuff, and so the company wanted to implement a gain share program. We had another company or the same company, actually, they realized that there were some inconsistencies in their food making process. And so the employees came up with a after they collected all the information and all of that feedback, really came up with some very creative ways to try to make the their to try to make necessary adjustments in the processes that they saw, needed some support that the employer probably made. You know, a lot of times, leadership knows that things are happening where they kind of guessing, and they’re like, I think this is an issue, but there’s so many other things, like, I don’t know, and so it really helps to provide some clarity for everyone.

Kelly Brooks  37:25

The non HCD, non human centered design process that we did was very it was a lot less dependent on the employees themselves, and we worked directly with the HR director and other leadership so in that we still conducted a survey. That’s really core to our work is getting feed, excuse me, getting feedback. And so you know, feedback from leadership, feedback from management, and feedback from employees through a survey. And so we worked with the HR director to implement an employee wide survey, a company wide survey. We did a lot of focus groups, drilling down. After that, we got, you know, the information back from the surveys. Developed some very strategic and pointed questions based on that, and conducted focus groups and then conducted one on one interviews. And so once we’re able to gather all of that information, the HR director, you know, they’re able to make different decisions, they’re able to say, okay, you know, for the there’s a company where they couldn’t understand why their frontline installers were turning over so fast. So they’d come in, get hired, go through the process, and they were gone in 90 days. And this had become a trend for the company. So this is a huge question and a huge cost and burden for for the company, the management teams and for HR having to retrain and retrain, rehire, go through onboarding consistently. So they were really trying to understand what was causing folks to leave. Is it $1 more somewhere else? Like, what are we doing? And so through the process of collecting all of this feedback, they were really able to pinpoint what was going on, and the HR director made a lot of changes in their hiring and onboarding and training process that allowed for folks to stay a lot longer and then be able to progress throughout the company. So it’s really about starting with what the business has challenges with. We’ll talk to leadership and decision makers. What are your. What are your pain points like? What are your business challenges? What keeps you up at night? What’s really happening? And then once we have that information and go through, you know, go through the process of collecting feedback from everyone else, synthesizing data, we then are able to circle back to those initial questions to say, well, here’s what we think, here’s what we see based on the information that we got. Here’s how things align or may not align, to what you know the challenges are, what are. And a lot of times employers, they kind of, they have ideas as to what they can do to make the changes right. They just don’t know how to make the changes. They may it’s just burdensome, or they’re kind of guessing, and they say, Well, if I do this, and that’s not it. Now, I’ve wasted all this time, so it really gives them a chance to have some more clarity and more strategic direction so that they can focus on the changes that they want to make, and make those changes.

Amanda Fins  41:02

Yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing the stories of your work and the positive outcomes that you’ve seen doing it. It’s really awesome to hear about. I want to come back to Cecilia to talk to you about some of the opportunities that you’re seeing in installation of solar with local high quality jobs. You’ve told us about exciting developments with the City of Austin. Can you tell us more about that, how you got there, and where you see even more potential for pro worker, pro climate wins moving forward?

Cecilia Behgam  41:37

Yeah, happy to do that. So you know, we’ve seen a lot of changes in the federal landscape in the past year, just in terms of, like, tax credits, and, you know, federal funding available for clean energy. And, you know, I think we’ve definitely seen the ripple effects of that. But what’s really exciting is, like, while these changes are happening at the federal level, we’re also seeing a lot of creativity. Coming from the local level to continue to deploy solar. So one example was the city of Austin, you know, we did another research report, which we love to do over here. But, you know, it’s all very applied. And you know, we looked at, you know, how much rooftop space, right, was available on publicly, on buildings across the city of Austin, you know, how much solar could this create? How many jobs could this create? And what’s really great is, you know, the city of Austin is, is looking into this seriously. They’re, they’re planning to, you know, they’re assessing, I think, about 75 different buildings that they have, planning to deploy enough rooftop solar to power over 3000 homes. And what’s great is, you know, there’s a really strong commitment to creating high quality jobs, to hiring locally and ensuring that, you know, these jobs really do benefit the local community, and, you know, provide strong wages and benefits. You know, I think, yeah, I think what we’ve seen is just, you know, the ability to pivot and get creative and, you know, continue to deploy the clean energy which we need, but doing it in a way that also, you know, creates positive impacts for economic development, that’s really creating high quality jobs that really support folks, families, you know, both can be possible together. And yeah, we’re excited to see this development, and hopeful that we’ll see more of that across the state and across the country. I’ll give a shout out to Harris County as well, which is home to Houston. And, you know, similarly, just seeing a lot of exciting potential for, you know, high quality solar jobs that hire folks locally, especially from communities that are, you know, what we would call like, environmental justice communities, right communities that are often hit most intensely by, you know, both pollution and also the impacts of climate change and extreme storms.

Amanda Fins  44:18

Yeah, that’s really exciting to hear. Thank you for telling us about that. And it’s also exciting to hear about all the research that you’re doing and all of the really cool things that you all are doing with that information. So moving to Ben, there’s this impression that, you know, labor can’t be successful in the South for all of the reasons that you mentioned earlier, as well, as you know, all of the barriers that we’ve been talking about just throughout this conversation, but we know that that’s not true. So can you tell us about where US SW has been successful, and what you’ve learned about successful labor organizing throughout your work?

Ben Wilkins  44:59

Yeah, you know. I when I think about where we’ve had successes, really, it’s been when we have refused to play by the rules that are broken. You know, the way that unions are, you know, required to organize, typically in the United States, is through, you know, single worksite union elections, which work in many cases, but in all cases, the employer, oftentimes, usually has a huge amount of ability to do whatever they want to do to stop the union drive, no matter how many workers deeply want it. But with our members, specifically, a lot of our folks are working in really small workplaces. You know, average fast food restaurant has maybe 25 employees. So the notion that 25 employees of one place should band together to confront the power of a multi billion dollar corporation like McDonald’s or Burger King, it just is not a realistic way to win. And so what we’ve really done is built a cross sector form of organization that’s that’s organizing workers across the service industry, across cities in the south. And so the real victories that we can point to are really significant wage increases that have made a dramatic impact on workers lives. So just I didn’t plan it out like this, but just yesterday, Duke University and health system, which is a place where we’ve been doing a lot of work, just instituted a $2 an hour increase to their starting wage, which is a massive victory. Thanks for the clap, Cecilia, we you know, it’s the largest private sector employer in North Carolina. The raise is going to impact almost 15,000 workers. We think it’s still not enough. You know, according to the MIT living wage calculator, the bare minimum in Durham County is $25 an hour, and that’s going to continue to be what we’re fighting for. But the way that we’ve we’ve won victories like that, as well as places like Waffle House, which, you know, raised wages significantly last year, is really by both organizing on the shop floor and also, you know, really organizing in the public sphere. So at Duke, we’re not really doing a traditional union campaign, but we are, you know, mobilizing workers, community members, faith leaders, to really call the question on Duke and say, you know, you’re an anchor institution in this community. You set the labor market here. You need to raise wages. You have a responsibility. And that’s been really, really successful. And so I think that’s a that’s a lesson that can be applied across the south. Is that, you know, although there are many rules and laws that constrain us, we can, we can join together in community and win huge victories.

Amanda Fins  47:57

Yeah, I love what you said about refusing to play by the rules that are broken. So I think that will be really helpful to take with us, and really excited about that win collapse for me as well, and looking forward to seeing, you know, the momentum that comes out of this that’s really exciting. Coming back to Maya, I know you’ve been deeply involved in state legislative advocacy in your work in Florida, and you’ve had success recently blocking the repeal of the Florida labor pool act. So I’d love to hear more about about that and the role of your members in that process. And what do you find works based on sort of like the legislative climate that you’re dealing with in Florida?

Maya Ragsdale  48:44

Yeah, thanks for that question. Also, that’s so exciting. Ben, congratulations. That’s amazing news. So in terms of Florida, we have a so I guess I could just take a step back for a second, which is to say that there are very, very few states in the country that have any regulations dealing with temp agencies. Most of them sort of anyway. I could give a whole history of it, but I think I’ll not do that. Florida, surprisingly, is one of the few states that has some very, very, very bare minimum protections that were passed in the 1990s and they don’t apply to all temp workers. They specifically apply to blue collar temp workers at particular types of temp agencies that are called labor pools, which is, again, where our members are concentrated. And so that has been, you know, it’s interesting, because Florida is, like many states in the South, is a is a Republican trifecta. And not only that, Republicans have a super majority in both the House and the House and the Senate, which also means that Democrats don’t even need to show up for them to meet quorum and pass essentially what what they want. So it is an extremely, extremely hostile legislative climate that has also been very again, like many states in the South. Are very active in terms of pre empting, local, local progressive ordinances, progressive procurement policies, progressive really, anything you can think of that is supportive of workers. So that is the climate that we existed in Florida. And it’s the climate that I think for sure, Cecilia deals with in Texas, that many people you know Ben deals within Georgia, like these are, this is kind of the conditions that were that we, that we deal with in the south. And so, you know, I think the work that we’re doing at the State legislature is kind of unlikely work. We didn’t, kind of intend, we didn’t set out to have a legislative strategy. We just kind of heard, you know, 10 days before the end of session earlier this year, that there was a bill to repeal the Florida Labor Pool Act that was had essentially gone completely uncontested through both the Senate and the House with with no pushback, and it was being pushed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the some, you know, big government, or, sorry, business, business association that has a lot of power in Florida and and a particular temp agency in Florida called Pace Setter, which is also really active in Texas. And so we, yeah, you know, we just did a very, very, very rapid mobilization and ended up being able to kill that repeal. And it was interesting, because the work that we did was really, it was actually focused a lot on the disinformation that was included in the bill the Senators were making claims, the sponsoring senators and and representatives were making claims saying that Florida had a Department of Labor, and so as a result, like a lot of the sort of provisions within the bill were were duplicative. There is no Florida Department of Labor. It was eliminated in 2000 so there were just these sort of like massive, massively inaccurate claims that were being made during that time. And it seemed like just sort of this last minute, just hearing, you know, there had really been very it was being sort of pitched as this, again, as this duplicative bill that had, or this duplicative legislation, and the bill was simply just sort of like correcting the correcting this sort of like error that existed, versus, like an actual repeal of a really massive piece of legislation. And so I think that what we actually saw was that the Senators and the Reps became actually very uncomfortable when they saw how much misinformation was was being sort of like spouted, and it ended up being killed by by a number of Republicans in the Senate, and then it ended up being repealed by the House Representative who was sponsoring it, because he said that he didn’t realize that he had been misinformed that said that Florida had an Department of Labor, and so that was sort of like the start of our legislative work.

Maya Ragsdale  53:00

Like I said, it was this very, very rapid mobilization with, I think we had about 30 or 40 of our members who mobilized within a 24 hour period to go up to Tallahassee, from all of us. It was our first time up there. And we probably talked to 4050, legislators over the course of two days. And yeah, and that was the outcome. We ended up taking that work and extending it this legislative cycle. And so we, instead of taking this sort of defensive approach, we took a proactive approach, and have been working with the Florida AFL CIO to pass amendments to actually strengthen the labor pool act. And so again, this year, we have Republican sponsor on both the House and the Senate. It’s gone through every committee so far in the Senate and passed unanimously and is going actually to the Senate floor tomorrow, and so we’ll see what the outcome of that is. But you know, again, it’s a similar thing we have in terms of the way our organization is structured. We have committees. We have a lot we have like committees that are made up of members who have taken on particular we have a committee that’s focused on organizing within a particular temp agency that we’re focused on, or not a particular but it’s a particular company that we’re focused on across Florida. So we have organizing committees that are focused on those places. We have an organizing committee that’s focused specifically on, sort of, like our legislative, both state and local work. And so that group of people have been, really the ones that have been, you know, supporting the mobilization, helping draft the bill, helping kind of think through what the legislative strategy is, doing outreach to senators, actually, senators and Congress people going up to Tallahassee, I think we’ve gone like six times this year so far with, always with a group of members. And so that has been the way that we, yeah, that’s been the way that we’ve been moving our moving our legislative work. And I. Yeah, you know, in terms of, it’s, it’s been a bit of a strange process for us to do this legislative work because of just the fact that, I mean, progressive organizations just have no power in the state. And so, you know, it’s, there’s been this kind of, you know, I would say our members kind of span the political spectrum, and we have been really careful about who we publicly say are partners on this particular legislation.

Maya Ragsdale  55:47

And so, you know, it’s, I don’t know these are, these are all these are all the sorts of like inside games that you play when you do this sort of legislative work. And it has been uncomfortable at times. Absolutely, and but I also think that it’s what’s made us, what’s actually made us successful, and what was made us be able to actually move some of this, some of this work, through at a time when, I mean, it’s just one attack against working people after another in the state.

Amanda Fins  56:22

Yeah, it’s really interesting to hear about how your members have mobilized to meet this moment in a tricky dynamic, to say the least. So I appreciate you sharing that.

Maya Ragsdale  56:33

And one more thing there, I will say, like it is not my favorite type of work, doing legislative work, and I think often for these types of reasons. Like the work that I really get excited about is our, sort of, like organizing work, like our our work where we have, you know, company targets. And can I feel like the way that we can kind of engage there is different, and I really appreciate the space that that opens up versus this sort of like, very like narrow confines that we exist within when we’re doing when we’re doing the legislative work that we do. So that’s just the final thing that I want to say. You know, I think if we we would never just do legislative work like for us it is, given the climate that we’re in, it is like legislative work as a thing to support the organizing work. We actually want to see the sort of baseline standards raised, which we think is supportive of the sort of like organizing work that we’re doing.

Amanda Fins  57:27

Yeah, I appreciate that final point. I think, I think that really adds so I think we’re going to now move to looking ahead and and get advice from our panelists here to share for with our audience. And I want to come back to Cecilia, you’ve mentioned that you know, despite federal disinvestment in clean energy, Texas has always been a leader in clean energy installation. What do you think is the story that’s driving this growth? And what advice you have for others who are hoping to see the same support for working people in their own communities?

Cecilia Behgam  58:06

Yeah, I mean, I just want to echo what Maya was saying, like, we need a lot of different strategies moving together at once, right? We need to be organizing with our co workers, right? We need to be, you know, supporting workplace organizing. We need to be engaging with elected officials. We need to be at the State House. And I think, just like having a multitude of strategies is really what helps us attack this issue, right of the the job quality crisis. And, you know, thanks to the Aspen Institute and this fellowship, I you know, we were able to learn about the southern economic development model from the Economic Policy Institute. And I really highly recommend folks just looking into their work, because, I mean, to sum it up in my own words, you know, it’s just, you know, this, this history and this current reality we see of, you know, large employers, you know, building large, you know, energy projects or manufacturing projects in the south, but we don’t always see like those benefits, the those jobs aren’t aren’t always good jobs, right? And, you know, there’s a number of reasons why I think these projects keep coming to the south. You know, I think Ben was getting into that earlier, but, you know, I think that’s part of the story with why we see so much clean energy development in Texas. But, you know, I think beyond that, you know, in order to make sure that these are good jobs and that we ensure that economic development leads to good jobs. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s just working in coalition. It’s like getting creative and, yeah, I think just circling back to my first point, just staying involved locally, and, you know, really, just understanding what’s happening with these industries as they’re growing, whether it’s clean energy or other industry. Industries, or just, what are the trends? You know, what are, what are workers facing on the job site and and really listening to workers and then working together to organize for solutions and implementing and enforcing them?

Amanda Fins  1:00:12

Yeah, thank you. And I want to come back to Maya, actually, because I know there’s a lot of folks across the country who are working with people with a record Do you have advice for them about the strategies and tactics that they can use to center those workers experiences?

Maya Ragsdale  1:00:31

Yeah, it’s a good question. I mean, I am obviously going to be partial to our model, and our model is really change training. You know, spending the vast majority of our resources and energy in training our members to be organizers. And so you know that that, for me is what I think is the most important. We want to see our people, you know, be be able to, you know, lead strategic conversations to help us, like, help make strategic decisions. We want to see people developed into strong leaders that are able to, you know, change worksite conditions and, you know, unionize their unionize their workplaces like these are the things that really matter to us. And so I think, you know, there’s a lot of different approaches that I think I see in in terms of, you know, the way that people interact with people, formerly incarcerated people, and I think they’re often very sort of like traditional re entry, sort of focused, you know, the program, like program participants who are clients, who are then kind of moving into maybe getting some sort of job training, or some sort of job placement assistance, then getting placed into, what we often see is actually often getting placed into temp agencies that are then giving them jobs, often at warehouses.

Maya Ragsdale  1:02:08

So I think that, yeah, you know, I think that that that model is a is, is really challenging, and it is. It’s the thing, it also is actually makes it very challenging in terms of just how we even how people come to us. I think a lot of people kind of are used to more of, like a service model, service based approach. And so when you interact with folks the first time, like, that’s that is the that’s sort of like their history of dealing with with organizations. And so I think, you know, it is definitely a different approach to to, you know, train train workers to be organizers, train people who are formerly incarcerated to be organizers, to engage in worksite campaigns. But that is, that’s what I’m partial to, and I think that that is what is required to improve, to improve job quality, versus kind of simply just, you know, funneling people into the into the existing primarily, sort of like low wage, bad jobs that that exist.

Amanda Fins  1:03:09

Yeah, thank you for weighing in there. And I think that that’s a really cool model that we’ve gotten to see how effective it is. And so thank you for sharing that. Kelly, I want to come to you now. What would your message be to other community based organizations looking to make a difference in job quality while keeping you know the community and the workers at the forefront?

Kelly Brooks  1:03:38

Yeah, great question. First, I would say, always, always collect feedback from the population and the community that you’re in and that you’re serving. It’s very important for folks to feel heard, to ask the right questions. A lot of times the we don’t even ask the questions, or if we do, we don’t ask the right ones, and then even to kind of showcase that feedback, like, for example, at Civic works, we will not only survey our our trainees, but then we’ll display the survey results and quotes and what people said, obviously not giving names and things like that. Everything’s anonymous and confidential, but just so that they can see we heard you, and then, like I mentioned, the community that you’re located or that you’re trying to serve often has the solutions, right? You just have to ask them. And so often they’re forgotten. They’re not even asked. Organizations come into to areas and neighborhoods and set up shop and try to do the work. And then, you know, it’s not as successful, because they didn’t ask anyone there that existed, that’s been living there or working there for many, many years. And then the same goes. Or, you know, if you’re working with employers, survey, ask them what it is that they need have, you know, just, just general. What I like to do is just have business conversations around like I mentioned earlier, what are, what are your challenges? You know, we don’t even have to go into an organization or company. It’s automatically survey them, right? I want to talk to the owners, the leaders, the decision makers, and understand what their issues are as well, so that we can find some alignment. I would say also, there can be a lot of red tape when you’re a grant funded organization and you’re trying to satisfy grant requirements, and you’re trying to satisfy funder requirements, because funders don’t want to fund everything right? They don’t want to fund the things that we need. They want to kind of fund the things that they want to see. A lot of times, funders may be looking for very, very specific outcomes, things that may not be as realistic. And so it creates for the organization trying to do good work, to create a lot of barriers for them to to have, to have to navigate. And so you’ll find that organizations are continually kind of layering, you know, these, these challenges and trying to add on things to the program, add on things, you know, to the paperwork, or to the to the contracts, whatever it is that they’re trying to do to the programs, right? They’re trying to layer all these things and satisfy all these groups of people. And it just really becomes very arduous work for the people who are trying to do the work, right? You find that then the employees that are working for these for the workforce development agencies, they’re overburdened with the processes that they even have to go through to serve the folks that they’re trying to serve, to implement the programs that they’re trying to implement, it just becomes very hard work. And so I would say in that regard, try to de layer, like try to just make it a little bit easier. Maybe have different conversations, if you if possible, with with the funders, create, create different funder relationships. Not every you know, you tend to kind of go to the same, same, you know funders to try to get the funding that you need.

Kelly Brooks  1:07:27

There are a lot of other funders who are looking to fund good work, and may be open to different conversations, maybe a little bit more flexible, if possible, be a little bit more bold in asking for what it is you need, you’ve gotten the proof and the voice of the workers, the folks or the population that you’re trying to serve, the community that you’re in. And so they, you know, to kind of talk about that misalignment between what it is that funders want to fund and what the grant requirements are requiring what your program is trying to accomplish, the metrics that you have to meet there, and then ultimately, the people that you’re trying to serve. And then also, I would say, be strategic in your partnerships. You know there’s, there’s always new partnerships that can be created, or just kind of adjusting the existing partnerships. And again, this comes down to having different conversations, getting out there to see, you know, a lot of times we’re all doing the same work, but you don’t know who’s like and in the same areas, but you don’t know like, who’s doing what? Like, no one’s talking to it. You know, I don’t say no, but a lot of times people are just aren’t talking to each other.

Kelly Brooks  1:08:43

And maybe we come together at forums like this, or conferences or, you know, local events, and then we find three other people who are doing the same work, and we’re like, oh my gosh, where were you this whole time? I’ve been doing this for seven years, and I didn’t know that you were out there. So maybe having event, hosting, events hosting, you know, conversations like this, you know, being more strategic about how you can be more visible with the work, so that you can bring on the partnerships that you need, get the funding that you need, and be able to be a little more flexible, so that you can ultimately accomplish what your program is set out to do, and that’s ultimately serve the people that it’s that you’re that are coming to your program and that are also in your community.

Amanda Fins  1:09:33

Yeah, thank you for sharing those really important points on all fronts. The thing you said, especially, you know, it seems simple to just sort of ask what workers and communities need. But that is that can be, you know, hard work, and it’s incredible, the things that you learn from from doing that.

Kelly Brooks  1:09:52

I would say, I’m sorry, also do what it is. You know, once you get the feedback, like, make the changes. You know, a lot of times we do these post surveys. Or we do these annual surveys, we get the information. I can’t tell you how many times employers or, you know, will collect information and then they don’t do anything, right? It kind of sits on the shelf. That really erodes a lot of trust. People get very discouraged. People are already fearful to speak up in certain positions, right? Like it’s you don’t know if you’re going to be identified. You don’t know if it’s actually anonymous, like they say. You’ve heard people get retaliated against for speaking up. All types of things happen. And so it’s very, very important that if you’re going to be intentional about collecting the feedback, that you actually make the changes that that you have received based on that feedback?

Amanda Fins  1:10:44

Yeah, thank you. And we’re going to finish off our questions with Ben. So finally, to you. What are you hoping for the immediate future of USSW work, and where do you see, sort of the unique opportunity for you all, uniquely positioned to address long term change in the South?

Ben Wilkins  1:11:07

Yeah, well, I think in the immediate future, we’re really excited about expanding our work, especially in some of the really big, kind of marquee employers in the south Waffle House and Duke are kind of the two main focus areas of our work in terms of single employers, and I think both present different opportunities and challenges. But on both fronts, I think there’s a lot of opportunity to to organize workers into a new kind of union movement for the 21st Century. And I think one thing we’re really uniquely positioned to do is to kind of meet the refuse, the kind of two projects of worker organizing and and creating career, career pathways. You know, the biggest thing, in addition to cost of living that we’re hearing is that workers really want to be able to have better opportunities and more opportunities. And so I think, on the one hand, that means persuading employers through organizing that that they need to raise wages, they need to create better conditions. They need to stop fighting unions tooth and nail. But I think it also means, you know, creating job training programs and and workforce development with really just good wage union jobs that come at the end, at the outcome of those programs. So I’m excited about developing some of that work in the south and really finding ways to work with employers who I think can see the light and understand that, you know, a well paid, highly trained workforce is going to be good for their business in the long run, and we’re really excited about moving in that direction in the future.

Amanda Fins  1:13:06

Yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you for sharing, and we’re excited for you. We have time for one audience question, but it’s a really timely one. So the question is, what do people see as the potential for employee ownership in improving jobs, and do you see models like worker co-ops fitting into the set of solutions to create more quality jobs? And this is a timely question, because our fellowship cohort just went to go visit the Industrial Commons in Morganton, North Carolina, where we toured a couple of of co-op factories and got to hear about their strategy and how they’re expanding. So I think this is top of mind for the folks here. But does anyone want to go first?

Ben Wilkins  1:14:01

I’ll go. No, I think it’s really important. And to be honest, before participating in the Aspen Institute, it wasn’t a huge it wasn’t on my radar, but I think that, I think the unions have to think really creatively right now about how to build power, and that can look a lot of different ways. I think we were having some of that discussion earlier of using different strategies and tactics. But, you know, typically in our arsenal as a labor movement, we have shop floor organizing, we have political power building, we have collective bargaining. That’s all good. I think we need to continue doing that. But I actually think getting really creative about building cooperatively owned enterprises in all kinds of industries. I mean, I think about healthcare, where, you know, we organize with a lot of workers, there’s, there’s all kinds of models that I think we could build, everything from. Employee owned, you know, labor agencies that are actually demanding employers pay high wages and respects the respect the rights of workers to food service to to any number of, I think, enterprises that would really help just kind of build the multi faceted power of workers and their ability to organize together.

Amanda Fins  1:15:27

Yeah, thank you. Does anyone want to go? Cecilia, I think you were going to jump in there.

Cecilia Behgam  1:15:33

Yeah, you know, similarly, I didn’t know a lot about employee ownership before starting this fellowship, but, I mean, I agree. I think, you know, we’re in a moment of extreme wealth inequality in our country. And I think we need unions, we need worker co-ops, we need all of it, you know, to to address, again, the job quality crisis. You know, I was, I was the first union member in my family, and I was very transformative. I had, like, much better wages and benefits, right, than other folks in my family who had non union jobs. But I don’t know, you know, I don’t know as many folks in the employee ownership space, I’ve been grateful to learn more about it this past year through the fellowship, and I agree that it definitely is a solution, and can be one of many solutions to creating more quality jobs.

Maya Ragsdale  1:16:27

I can go next. I mean, I am really, really interested in in worker ownership and worker Co-op models. And I, I would say, I’m especially interested in union worker co-ops. There’s a couple of unions, United Food and Commercial Workers and United Steel Workers that have actually, I would say, led the way in terms of, you know, investing in, actually investing real resources into the creation of worker co-ops, and actually kind of treating it as a potential new line of business, new line of membership for them. I think the challenge there is really scale. I think a lot of worker co-ops that you see, you know, have no more than 10-15, members, the ones that exist in the US, and they’re very, very, very capital intensive to start. But with that being said, I think that there’s a lot of ways that people are thinking about creative solutions or potentially different industries that they could, that they could enter into. And so, you know, there’s a couple of examples that I that I really like SEIU uhw In California, created allied up, which is a staffing co op for healthcare workers. And I think they have about 100 worker owners, with another 150 people that are finding work with union wages, union benefits on a monthly basis, all of whom are unionized under SEIU UHW. And I think SEIU probably put in a few $100,000 into that. There’s a union in Florida, fpsu, Florida Public Services Union that’s that has been looking into work worker co-ops for the last five, six years or so, in construction. There are, you know, worker co-ops under UFCW and Rhode Island that are doing cannabis dispensaries. So I think that there’s, I mean, these are a handful of examples, and there isn’t, hasn’t been, historically, a lot of investment of unions into worker co-ops, at least in the US specifically. But I just think that there is actually quite a bit of potential there if we can kind of figure out some of the scale, the scale issues.

Kelly Brooks  1:18:36

Thank you, and I’ll jump in last I definitely think that I have learned a lot more about employee ownership companies in the last year. So one of our consultants works a lot with employee owned companies, and I would say it is a great strategy. You’re ultimately giving people power, giving power back to the people. I would say, right, you’re you’re allowing folks to take a different level of mindset around their jobs. It’s a different level. It’s an ownership mindset. And so not only are they thinking like owners, they’re now behaving like owners on the job. So now it allows for folks to make very strategic decisions, thoughtful decisions that they may not have considered before because it wasn’t really their responsibility. They didn’t get any difference in pay, and there was no kickback. But when you have things like or when you have structures like employee ownership, and you’re getting access to stock and other benefits like that, you’re also teaching folks about how to manage finances better. You find that folks are now able to manage their own money in their own households a little better. They may have a little more dignity when they come to work. They’re able to have better conversations with their colleagues and with their leaders than they what they what they were having before. For and so I think it, although it is very I think, as Maya mentioned, it’s very cost, costly upfront. The back end, benefit of an employee owned company can be very great and and very beneficial to not only your workers, your company, but the community that they come from.

Amanda Fins  1:20:22

Thank you. I think with that, I think we’ll end the conversation there, but thank you to Ben Kelly, Maya and Cecilia for joining us today for this really great and important conversation. It’s really our pleasure to have this brilliant group of job quality fellows in our cohort and to hear all about your expertise, and you know, as was mentioned throughout the conversation, just the multitude of strategies that you all are using to to improve job quality. So thank you, and thank you as well to our wonderful team here at Aspen. There’s a ton of work that happens behind the scenes to pull this off, and we definitely couldn’t pull it off without them. So thank you to Matt Helmer, Maxwell, Johnson, Tony, Francis, Nora, Colleen, Sinan, and, of course, Maureen Conway, for all that you do to make our events a success. Definitely please join us for the next event in our series. It will be April 1, Reimagining Economic and Workforce Development, and we’ll see you next time. Thank you for tuning in.